NSW registered over 11,200 positive COVID-19 cases on December 29th, 2021. This represented an almost two-fold increase from the previous days' count of 6,032. With reports of desperate residents waiting up to eight hours just to access a PCR test, NSW has now stumbled wearily into uncharted territory.
We're setting records in NSW. Just not the sort of records we want, nor should be proud of.
Despite growing concern in the medical community, NSW Premier and arch-conservative Dominic Perrottet insists the state is prepared for any further cases. This is despite the very real lack of PCR testing kits, Rapid Antigen Tests and open testing sites which risk exacerbating case numbers and worsening community transmission.
Only, he's dead wrong. NSW isn't prepared. There are widespread reports of patients in hospitals contracting the virus by mere exposure to COVID positive individuals in ER. Similar stories exist of desperate people waiting hours in line only to be turned away due to a lack of resources at open testing sites.
While criticism has arisen from mainly conservative corners that the death rate remains low and that ICU numbers and hospitalisations are steady (they are, for the time being), the sheer number of cases now growing each day, presents its own very real and pertinent danger.
Theoretically, each person who tests positive is required to isolate, as are close-contacts. Letting COVID 'rip' has ensured that increasing numbers of the state's residents are removed from economic circulation. Meaning more and more people are isolating as per these requirements.
If even half of this number are actually observing these rules, that still means more than 20,000 directly positive cases and who knows how many thousands more close-contacts, are now not working, not spending their dollars and are not in the community.
If we are to assume Mr. Perrottet's economic motivation for opening up the state and abrogating any commitment to localised lockdowns remains as it is, then we can also reasonably assume that as cases grow, larger numbers will likewise be removed from circulating their skills, money and expertise in study, the local community and employment.
However, none of this matters. The only indicator of success to big 'L' Liberal Dominic Perrottet remains the almighty dollar. With more than 8 million residents in NSW, the premier has a large and ample supply of sacrificial lambs to get through before any real economic damage can be measured.
Either that or one of his own end up contracting the virus and the defining conservative indifference we are all sadly accustomed to suddenly evaporates. Certainly, I do not wish for this to happen. It is simply astonishing however of how many in Perrottet's camp change their tune when they or someone they love is in the firing line, so to speak.
Until then, we can expect more of the same from our disgustingly overpaid premier. More deflections, more appeals to personal responsibility, more ignoring the fact that sites are closed or under-resourced, and more gutting of the public system to further incentivise privatisation as a saving grace.
The NSW Government has had two years to prepare and routinise responses to COVID-19. Instead of opting to listen to expert advice from a more than competent Dr. Kerry Chant, the Perrottet Administration has, expectantly, preferanced the almighty dollar for short-term gain.
With Health Minister Brad Hazzard also suggesting that 'eventually, all of us will get COVID' it should come as no surprise that the NSW Government has now, effectively, left us to dry in the wind of our own personal capacities. However limited and self-interested they may be.
What is one man's personal responsibility, ends up becoming another's death or serious illness.
I'd prefer a government that cares. Not for dollars, but for lives - I could have one extra relative alive today if this was the case. I just hope the good people of NSW remember this in 2023.